Killing Time On Mars

by Alec Taylor

  “What was that?” I asked, quickly standing up.

  6. REWIND

  “What was what?” asked Chris.

  “There was someone…Something moved down there at the end of the row,” I said.

  “I didn’t see anything,” said Pete, “and I’ve been facing that way the whole time.”

  “Humour me,” I said. “Both of you go back to the start of the row, and when I get to the other end, walk in opposite directions to the far sides of the greenhouse. If someone’s here, we’ll flush them out.”

  Chris and Pete exchanged quick glances.

  “I don’t think there’s anyone here,” said Pete, “but it’s good to make sure.”

  I rushed down the aisle and emerged at the far end of the greenhouse. I looked left and right, expecting to see someone hiding, but there was nobody there. I looked back up the row to Chris and Pete and pointed my thumbs in opposite directions, a signal to start walking.

  I quickly turned my head left and right to catch anyone coming out, but nobody emerged. After a minute, Chris and Pete returned to the top of the row, and it was obvious they had found nothing.

  I walked back to them and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” said Pete.

  I walked back to the door of the greenhouse, where Glen was waiting with Vivian. She was still crying quietly into her hands.

  “Vivian,” I said, “I know this is hard, but we need to find out what happened to Imani. I need you to go back to the start and tell me what happened today.”

  “Imani normally comes in at seven-thirty,” said Vivian after a moment, shaking her head. “She’s never late. I called her several times and then called you. I was so worried when the search request came out, I looked everywhere. In the bathrooms and common rooms and then out here in the greenhouses. I thought maybe she’d come out here early to work on something. It took ages to look through the first two greenhouses, and then I found her here. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw her. I saw her neck and her face…” She bowed her head for a second and sobbed. “And I called you.”

  “Did you see anyone else while you were searching the greenhouses, inside them or in the passages?” I asked.

  “Um, no.” Her breathing was ragged. Tears streamed down her face and she was shaking.

  “I’m sorry, Vivian, I need to ask. Did you touch Imani, or anything else in here?”

  “I…don’t think so.”

  “Did you see anything unusual? Anything at all?” I asked.

  “No, nothing unusual,” she replied, starting to compose herself. “And I didn’t touch her. Oh, God, I should have started CPR.”

  “No, it wouldn’t have helped. It was already too late.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for your help.”

  We were simply not equipped for a proper criminal investigation. We had no scene kit, no tests, or tools to collect evidence. After filming the area, we carried Imani’s body to the infirmary for Chris to perform an autopsy. Glen stayed with Chris to gather evidence from Imani’s post mortem or her suit.

  As Pete and I approached the Security Office, he said, “You seem to know what you’re doing.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wondering how much experience he had in this kind of situation.

  “So, we need to open a case file and I guess we need to find a murderer,” said Pete.

  “Yep,” I said as we walked into the office. “I’ll start with the video feeds.”

  “Okay,” said Pete. “Get to it. I’m going to inform Karl.”

  There were airlocks in the passages outside the greenhouses, which created a series of discrete, airtight segments. Every door in the outer colony had an emergency airlock and an air-pressure sensor to detect depressurisation—the doors automatically closed in the event of a blowout. They also had communication panels with cameras. Imani’s killer had walked through at least three airlocks along the passage to greenhouse three, starting at the main airlock to the inner colony.

  I sat at my screen and opened the video from the airlock in front of greenhouses three and four. Then I ran the footage in reverse, taking notes:

  10:53 – Security team, Chris & Vivian leave greenhouse 3 carrying Imani’s body

  10:04 – Security team enters greenhouse 3, immediately followed by Chris

  09:55 – Vivian enters greenhouse 3

  There was a long period in the footage where nothing happened. I accelerated the rewind. The light gradually faded, the tiny red emergency lights on the next airlock shone in the distance. The footage passed midnight the evening before, and then suddenly:

  23:56 – A colonist rushes out of greenhouse 3 alone, visor down

  23:45 – A colonist walks into greenhouse 3, visor down

  23:42 – A colonist walks into greenhouse 3, visor down

  The two colonists arrived only three minutes apart, and I couldn’t tell which one was Imani. I froze images of them next to the greenhouse doorway and measured their relative heights. They were so close that I couldn’t determine which one was Imani and therefore in which order they entered the greenhouse.

  Pete came back to the Security Office not long after leaving to update Karl and started working on the normal tasks for the office.

  I went further back in the footage and found that there were no other movements through the airlock for several hours before midnight. I checked the entire day and discovered that nobody else had entered that greenhouse on the day Imani died—it was Sunday, the end of the weekend. By the time I finished looking at the video feeds it was mid-afternoon and my stomach was rumbling. However, I kept going, ignoring my hunger because I was finally working on something that mattered. There was no ignoring a murder.

  I executed a universal locator search for 23:46 on the night of Imani’s murder—if the killer’s transmitter was on at the time of her death, then they would appear in the greenhouse and I would instantly know who did it. I guessed they weren’t that stupid and I wasn’t surprised to find that only Imani’s transmitter was in the greenhouse at that time. Then I remembered how difficult it had been to find her. I executed another search at 23:50 and she was gone. Her killer had tampered with her transmitter.

  I called Glen down in the infirmary.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “Glen, the killer tampered with her transmitter. Try to pick up any prints on the suit pouch or transmitter.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. Improvise something, try using tape. And take a high-res picture.”

  I knew it was a long shot—the material was rough, and we had no effective equipment for imprinting.

  I looked back at the paused footage of the colonist entering the greenhouse at 23:42 and stared at it for a few seconds. I thought How do I find you? and then had an idea.

  The clothing pool database contained a total of 3,834 currently allocated outersuits. The number surprised me—it was more than triple the colony’s population. On reflection, I realised that everyone that worked outside the colony must have at least one spare outersuit and that was well over half of the population. Then I went back and counted the total number of suits returned by the universal locator search at 23:46: 3,825. Nine suits were missing. I cross-matched the names associated with the active suits with the names on the locator search and produced a list of nine suspects.

  “Pete, come and have a look at this.”

  “What have you got?” he asked as he came over.

  I took him through the footage and my suit crosscheck and said, “We should talk to these nine people as soon as possible.”

  “Woah. Slow down there, Mikey. We need to tread carefully. We don’t want to cause panic. If it was just three or even five, maybe we could go get them now, but nine…We need a plan. Let’s check in with Glen and visit Karl. We need to keep him in the loop anyway.”

  We visited Glen in the infirmary and, as expected, he had found nothing helpful on the suit. He had taken high-resolution pictures of the tra
nsmitter pouch on Imani’s suit, and the transmitter itself, and run a range of filters over them, but unfortunately they gave us nothing. So we went to the Chief Executive’s office.

  Pete knocked on the light plastic door and walked into Karl’s office. It was like Security—a small round space with dirty red-and-grey walls and pipes above the door. Karl was sitting behind a large grey plastic desk at the back of the room and there was another smaller desk closer to the door.

  The view in the colony was that Karl was very smart and had been highly successful on Earth. Apparently, he had immigrated to the US from Russia as a teenager and did well at school and university. He rose through the ranks of an American exploration business, demonstrating commercial acumen and an innate understanding of people. JOSEV viewed him as a kind of corporate politician—someone who could deliver business outcomes while keeping all the various stakeholders generally happy. He had a reputation for disarming people with his charm and confidence and for being able to reverse their opinions.

  Karl’s Executive Manager, Jan, was sitting at the end of Karl’s desk, taking notes. His fair complexion and the pronounced bump in the middle of his nose made him look a little Nordic, although his chin was small and pointy.

  “What is it?” asked Karl.

  We briefed him on everything we knew: that we were confident Imani had been strangled, that we were hunting a murderer, and about the nine missing suits.

  “Show me the list,” said Karl. His face was a blank mask and his movements were oddly economical—short sharp gestures. I shared the list with him and he scanned it briefly, his face not moving a muscle. Then he said, “Ah. I have met all, of course, and do not believe any could do this.” He shared it with Jan. “What will you do next?”

  “We should bring them all in, immediately,” I replied, leaning forward and nodding.

  “What, all nine?” said Jan with a sceptical smile, which made me frown.

  “Yes,” I said, “One of them murdered Imani last night. We need to bring them all in as soon as possible.”

  “Nine is a lot of people to accuse of murder,” said Pete. “Perhaps we should spend some more time trying to cut the number down and shorten the list. They’re not going anywhere. It’s getting late now. Let’s pick it up in the morning.”

  It seemed like an extraordinarily passive response to a murder. Pete was right that the colony was contained, but a murderer was living among us. We needed to find them urgently.

  “But—” I started to say.

  “Mike?” said Pete, cutting me off and raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s shorten the list and pick it up in the morning.”

  It occurred to me that Pete had been doing administration and risk assessments for too long. However, he was making it clear that further discussion would not be productive.

  “That makes sense. Shrink the list,” said Karl with finality. “I will send a message to all colonists, informing them of this tragedy. I will say that we are doing all we can to discover the cause of her death.”

  That night I slept lightly for a few hours, before returning to Security very early in the morning. I started searching for a pattern across the nine names and did a double take when I noticed that Eli, who was one of the nine suspects, shared a room with Jan, Karl’s Executive Manager.

  I had occasionally chatted with Eli in the dining room over the last two weeks and he stood out in my mind as the first person I had heard express Martian patriotism. He seemed nice enough, though he usually ate alone and was a little shy. I wondered why Jan hadn’t said anything about being Eli’s roommate.

  I looked at the call logs and saw that none of the suspects had called Imani in the days immediately preceding her death. By 07:00, I felt that we would have to round up all nine suspects after all, but I impulsively decided to call June again as a last resort. I thought if she looked at the list someone might stand out for her.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice was quivering, and I realised she must have read the message from Karl about Imani. I instinctively wanted to go to her, wrap my arm around her shoulder and tell her that everything was going to be all right. Not as a police officer comforting a victim, but as a friend, against my better judgement.

  “June, it’s Mike. I’m so sorry,” I said.

  She was silent for a moment and then said, “Thanks, Mike.”

  “I know this is a very upsetting time, but I’m investigating Imani’s death.”

  “You mean,” she said, suddenly attentive, “that she was killed?”

  “We’re not sure yet, but I think so,” I replied, remembering the vague language that Karl had used the previous day. “Could you please look at a list of names, confidentially, and tell me if any of them had any reason to hurt her?”

  “Oh, God,” she said and then sighed. “I guess so.”

  “I’m sending you the list,” I said and shared it with her.

  She looked at it for a few seconds, “Imani probably knows all of them, but she was in a relationship with Eli until a few weeks ago. I can’t imagine him having anything to do with this though. Not a chance.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “He’s my boss, you know. I’ve known him for years. Have you met him?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s a good guy. He wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

  “Right. Okay, then,” I said, not wanting to trouble her anymore. “Please don’t talk to anyone about our conversation, particularly about the list or Eli. Not even to him when you see him.”

  “Okay,” she said, and I hung up.

  Pete wanted to shorten the list—I was now singularly focused on an individual. An ex-lover was a prime suspect for murder. I needed to find Eli and fast. I already knew his location transmitter was not operating—he was on the list of nine missing suits—so I tried calling him, with no answer. I hung up and at that moment a call came in to Security from the shift supervisor in the main hangar.

  “We’re missing a buggy and its transmitter isn’t responding,” she said.

  “Okay, thanks,” I said, thinking quickly. “Actually, I think I might know who has it. Mind if I come out and take a hovee to look for it?”

  As I rushed to the hangar, I called Pete and gave him an update—I was heading out in a hovee to search for a buggy that had probably been stolen by Eli, Imani’s ex-lover.

  7. LOVE AND POLITICS

  I desperately scanned the other side of the canyon, searching for any sign of the shadowy figure that I had glimpsed. Nobody was there and there didn’t seem to be anywhere to hide. I wondered if it could have been a cloud of dust. After a few seconds of scanning the other side, I looked back at the carnage below.

  Pieces of metal and plastic were still flying and tumbling in the low gravity as I looked over the edge of the canyon. Debris and dust were spreading across the canyon floor from the impact site. I could see Eli—he was lying beside the wreckage, his limbs strangely contorted.

  “Oh, God,” I said as I ran back to the hovee. On impulse I swept straight over the canyon to where I had seen the figure. I couldn’t see tracks or any other signs that someone had been there. There was a small chance that Eli might have survived the crash, so I didn’t linger. I quickly flew down into the canyon.

  Pieces of the buggy were everywhere, some of them still moving, and the tanks were spewing gases. Eli was lying beside the wreckage—it looked like he had been thrown out when the buggy first hit the ground. His suit was slashed open in many places and dark red blood was pooling in the dust beside his head.

  I bent down to look at him and saw that something had punched through his helmet. His face was a mangled mess and he was obviously dead. From the moment I had spied the buggy at the top of the cliff, I had sensed that this was how it was going to end. I wanted to go back and replay those last few moments, do something—anything—to avoid this ending. I was shaking and sweating as an enormous wave of regret and bitter frustration swept over m
e. It felt strangely familiar, but I instinctively forced myself to regain control and focus on the situation at hand.

  Pete and Chris flew straight down to the crash site and landed nearby. They found me standing over Eli, staring at the pooling blood. Chris examined him and Pete put his hand on my shoulder.

  “He was upset because she’s dead,” I said quietly. “He claimed he was innocent.”

  I looked up to see Pete looking at me. Above and behind him was the lip of the far side of the canyon, which reminded me of the dark figure that I had glimpsed.

  “When he went over, I thought I saw…” I said.

  “What?” asked Pete.

  “On the other side of the canyon,” I said.

  Chris looked up and asked, “What was it?”

  I hesitated. It had been a momentary glimpse and could easily have been a trick of the light, or even my imagination. I was tired and stressed and still adjusting to life on Mars.

  “No, nothing. Don’t worry,” I said. “Just a shadow. We need to focus on this.”

  We collected the pieces of the buggy and loaded them into nets attached to the bottom of the hovees. We strapped Eli’s body into the spare seat in my hovee and then we all flew back to the colony. I looked across at him, slapped my free hand on my leg with frustration, and swore.

  We stacked the pieces of smashed buggy in a corner of the hangar and asked the officers on duty to make sure they were left untouched. Eli’s body was slack as we carried it through the airlock and staging area. We walked through the colony toward the infirmary where Chris would perform the mandatory autopsy. Drops of blood occasionally fell to the floor. People stopped and stared as we walked through the passages. We left Chris at the infirmary with the body and then went back to the Security Office.

  “Thank God that’s over,” said Glen with relief as we walked in.

  “Yeah, that was bad,” said Pete.

  “At least we know who killed Imani.”

  I sat down, still reeling from Eli’s death and stared at Glen and Pete. Flashes of the horrific crash scene kept spinning around my mind, making it hard to think. But I knew that there was something wrong with their conclusion.